What’s the Story Behind the ‘World’s Toughest Job?’

An interviewee reacts to American Greetings’ “job description.” The interviewer (inset) is an actor.

The advertising company that came up with the viral “World’s Toughest Job” video campaign for Greeting-card maker American Greetings, said the idea was based on a true story.

According to Mark Wenneker, chief creative officer for Mullen, the Boston ad firm, a member of his creative staff was at a family get-together a few months ago when she noticed her sister-in-law’s efforts at caring for her baby. It seemed like an extremely difficult job.

“So she stored that away like a squirrel” and later recalled the experience while working on the American Greetings project for promoting Mother’s Day, Wenneker said.

The resulting video appears to be a collection of job interviews conducted over Skype. The occupation, described as “Director of Operations” sounds promising at first but quickly heads downhill. As the interviewer gradually reveals increasingly unpleasant, outrageous details of the gig, the interviewees, who are not actors and were not aware of the prank, react with disbelief and disillusionment.

This is a 24-hour job that required heavy lifting, standing most of the time and bending over a lot. There are no breaks and worst of all, there is no pay. The audience soon finds this is the descriptions of a mother’s job.